The Spot in Carpenteria, CA is a great little, well, um, spot. It’s about a block away from the ocean and has excellent burgers, fries and onion rings. Damn, I have to rate it very high on all three and probably give it the august Jesse Award for the best burger on the Central Coast.
And even though it’s located forty from home, it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump away from my wife’s BFF who just moved there a few months ago. The three of us had lunch there today.
But the place always has a line. And I found out why.
The entire building is made up of the ordering and pick up counters and the tiny kitchen. I saw guy back there chopping up a huge stack of pastrami on a small cutting board, since there was so little room. Anyways, people wait outside, and there are two separate areas, the Order window and the Pick Up window on the adjacent side of the building.
As I was waiting for them to call our order, a woman walked up to the Pick Up window with her number and said, "We didn’t get our onion rings." I figured they forgot to put the onion rings on their tray and would just plop some on a new tray and then they could go back to important things like working on my order.
Then the woman continued, "We didn’t get them because my husband forgot to order them." I should have know she was up to something as she spoke in a low voice, had her back to the crowd in line, and leaned in to speak to the attendant. The attendant allowed her to order then she handed the attendant a twenty (of course) and got her change. Then she stayed at the window even there were four more people ahead of her. Immediately after that, a couple walked to the same window, mumbled something about a chocolate cone and walked away a few moments happy with cones in their hands.
Apparently the pick up window is the center of some hostility by customers because there was a sign that read, "If you look up, there are no arches, so please be patient for your food."
If The Spot moved their Pick Up window next to the Order window, they could cut their lines since people would be too afraid to re-order at the pick window.
But all in all we had a great time catching up and enjoying the food. On the way home we stopped at Target and as usual I waited in the car reading emails, Twittering, and playing with the new iPhone 2.0 apps. I stepped through the IChing application to see my fortune and it said that I was eating, drinking, and feasting as if it were my only occupation and on this Sunday afternoon that was very accurate.